


All Fine Things

by vodkaanddebauchery



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: 5 Things, Clothing Kink, Established Relationship, F/F, Femslash, Genderswap, Rule 63, Turtleduck rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-06
Updated: 2012-09-06
Packaged: 2017-11-13 16:18:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vodkaanddebauchery/pseuds/vodkaanddebauchery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things Bolin and Ira learn about one another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Fine Things

**Author's Note:**

> This has been lurking, finished, on my harddrive and I need to get it off my conscience before I even attempt to write anything else.  
> Pab's genderswap fanart on tumblr is still my headcanon for Bolin and Ira, and nothing will change that.

+Ira+

1.  
During working hours and around the ship, Ira wears her hair in a long braid. It falls to the middle of her back in a thick, dark rope, bound with golden ties that catch the sunlight.. It’s the envy of all the female members of the crew wishing to grow out their hair - but more importantly, the braid is sensible. It keeps her hair out of the way of working machinery and flying sparks; when sea and storm unleash their fury on the ships, the braid keeps Ira’s hair from blowing into her face. It’s sensible and regulation-friendly. 

It isn’t until Bo shares Ira’s quarters that she sees Ira’s hair down for the first time. In the dim-lit cabin, the dark strands take on subtle hints of red, reflecting the flickering lamplight like embers hiding amid coal. Entranced, Bolin reaches out to tangle her fingers in the thick, glossy curls, and finds it so much softer than it looks. 

2.  
She’s - well, she’s not a neat freak. Not exactly. She’s guilty of leaving her clothes and towel on the bathroom floor from time to time, same as anyone else - just as long as it’s cleared up by the end of the day, there’s no problem. One time she even left her chambers undusted for a week, while on shore leave. 

Nope, General Ira is not a neat freak _at all_. 

But the first time Bo took her back to her own apartment for a change, she visibly stiffened at the healthy layer of clutter settled over every flat surface.  
In Bolin’s defense: The floor was still visible, but it could have used a good sweeping - and at least there weren’t any dirty dishes lying around, Bolin was getting better about that! And there wasn’t an inch of dust settled on everything, like the last time Mako had come to visit. Half of her laundry was in its proper place, which was good, but the other half of it was dirty and scattered across the floor...which was supposedly less good, Bolin thought, but she got points for trying. 

But the point remained: That night her neat freak girlfriend took it on herself to de-clutter Bo’s living room, and would have gotten started on clearing out the bedroom if Bolin hadn’t decided then and there to tackle her onto the unmade bed and distract her for the rest of the evening. 

3.  
Ira’s vision is fine, it really is, she’ll snap at you if you insinuate otherwise - but fine print she has issues with. 

If she reads for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a stretch or has to fill out paperwork, out come the spectacles, little round owlish things with thin rims of warm gold. They leave red marks where they clip on, a fine red line across the bridge of her nose where the stem between the lenses rests - it’d look ridiculous if it wasn’t so endearing. 

4.  
“I don’t believe it.” 

“What, you don’t believe that I’ve been in a bar fight? I may be several things, Bo, but first and foremost I am a sailor. Sailors and barroom brawls go together like flying lemurs and peaches.” 

“I believe that! I just don’t believe that you’re a Fire Nation princess and you’re going around breaking peoples’ noses in taverns -” 

“What, knowing how to break a nose is _beneath my honor_?” 

“Heh, I guess. Honor’s a pretty big thing with you guys, right?” 

“On occasion. But the last person who made certain insinuations against my honor got his nose broken.” 

5.  
“I look ridiculous.” 

Bolin fidgeted with the cuffs of the uniform resting well above her wrists, with the buttons of the jacket which were straining at the bust. It was too warm and smelled like ocean spray and a faint hint of sandalwood oil, and made Bo feel ten times bigger than she actually was. 

It was supposed to be a surprise, which every romantic bone in Bolin’s body insisted would be a rather _sexy_ surprise, but in reality she just felt awkward and ill-suited. It takes a certain level of inherent authority to pull off a coat like Ira’s, and Bo was rapidly becoming aware that she was not authoritative.  
When Ira came back to her quarters just as Bolin was beginning to fidget with the collar, she was tempted to call the whole thing off and chalk it up to a silly whim - but there it was, the sudden stillness about Ira. The warm gold of her eyes sharpened like a blade being drawn, she might have even stopped breathing. She looked like some sort of wild, exotic creature caught unaware, so caught between pouncing and fleeing that you could walk right up and touch before it moved. 

Bolin stood a little straighter under Ira’s gaze. “How do I look, Ira?” 

“Like.” The word got caught in Ira’s throat, she had to swallow it down and try again. “Like you’re wearing my clothes.” 

As it turns out, Ira really likes what Bolin looks like when she’s wearing her clothes. 

+Bo+ 

1.  
At first Ira’s willing to dismiss it as a one-off incident, something random that wouldn’t happen again. Because, logically, it shouldn’t. They’re together, and Ira thinks Bo’s happy with the arrangement, so she’s willing to ignore it because they’re both happy, and why mess with a good thing? 

But then it happens again, when they’re in a bookshop. And later that afternoon while they’re in the park and getting ice creams. 

Finally, when they’re out to dinner and it happens for the third time that day, Ira has to say something. “Do you.” She stops. This might not be the most appropriate thing to ask on the second or third date, but now it’s bothering her. “Do you flirt with _everyone_ , or am I just imagining it?” 

Bo looks - well, bewildered is the best word for it. “I don’t know. Do I?”  
“All afternoon,” Ira says, trying her best not to sound strangled. “And just now with the waiter.”  
“I can’t say, I thought people were just being nice.” Shrugging, she wraps her pink lips around her straw and takes a sip of her drink in a way that makes Ira’s blood run hot and cold _at the same time_ , all calculated, coquettish innocence now directly focused at Ira. 

2.  
Bolin is ticklish. 

_Everywhere._

It takes no effort at all to wake her up; Ira simply has to place the merest suggestion of a kiss on the tip of Bo’s button nose and she awakens, sniffing and rubbing her face and giggling half-dazed with sleep. 

3.  
“Ira!”  
If there’s one thing the youngest General of the United Navy is used to, it’s being woken up by someone in a panic at three in the morning. She opens her eyes, sitting up in bed in one smooth movement. “Bolin? What’s wrong?” 

Bolin’s barefoot, wearing panties and the ratty undershirt she sleeps in and nothing else. Her hair is a sleep-messed tangle, and raw panic floods her face. “I can’t find Pabu! I got up to use the bathroom and usually he’s right at the foot of the bed and now he’s not, and he’s nowhere in the apartment -” 

Ira rises out of bed and checks the apartment, Bo fretting behind her the entire time. The longer the search takes, the closer to tears the younger woman sounds. When Ira finds the living room window opened a crack, just wide enough for a ferret to squeeze through, Bolin actually does start crying, lower lip wobbling in a way that goes straight through to Ira’s heart.  
They stay up until dawn, curled up together on the couch. Bolin soaks the shoulder of Ira’s nightshirt all the way through, goes through half a box of tissues and sobs even harder when Ira kisses her forehead and combs her fingers through her mussed hair. 

Ira loses track of time like that, can’t pinpoint exactly when Pabu squeezes back in through the window and scamper across the back of the couch onto Bolin’s shoulder, like he hadn’t been gone - it was sometime between lunch and the early afternoon, and Bo’s worn from crying.  
Ira closes the window firmly as Bolin gets up from the couch and locks herself in the bathroom for an hour-long bath. She doesn’t talk much for the rest of the day. 

It’s not until the three of them are back in bed, as they should have been early this morning, that Bolin mumbles, “’m sorry for being so stupid earlier.”  
That startles Ira back from the cusp of sleep. “What? You weren’t being stupid -”  
“I panicked, I was being stupid.” Bo’s voice is still raw. “I should have known he’d come back, I was stupid to waste your time by crying all day.”  
“Bolin,” Ira says firmly, shifting in her earthbender’s arms so she can get a good look at her, “Nothing you can do will ever waste my time and it wasn’t stupid of you to get so upset. Pabu obviously means a lot to you. He’s a part of your family.”  
“He’s a ferret,” Bolin mumbles, embarrassed.  
“He’s a part of my family too,” Ira concludes, feeling herself go faintly red. “Because he means so much to you. Go to sleep, you need it.” 

(The next morning Bolin wakes Ira up by making Pabu do a handstand on her chest. “You said he’s part of your family now, this is what family does.”) 

4.  
It had started off as a lovely walk on a windy spring morning, the snap of winter not quite gone from the air, and everything was simple and lovely until Bolin had heard the panicky quacking of a mother turtleduck and the frantic piping of her chicks. A quick sweep of the surrounding sidewalk revealed the mother, standing helpless at a storm grate, the chicks trapped in the sewer below. 

That had been a half hour ago. 

Ira watched as Bo organized what must have been a citywide turtleduck rescue effort, with herself at the helm. The sewer grate had been yanked up an aside courtesy of an off-duty cop; the couple who owned the nearby Water Tribe restaurant found their son and press-ganged him into bending the water from the sewer up and onto the sidewalk, depositing the wet and tired chicks safely on dry ground.  
Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Bolin had gathered up the chicks by hand, checked them all for injury, and carried both them and the mother turtleduck five blocks to the nearest park with a pond. 

Everyone close to Bo knew that she had a big heart - indeed, her sister might argue that it was too big, it lead her more often than her head did. But watching the family of turtleducks paddling around the pond with her, Ira knew for certain that her girlfriend had the biggest heart in the entire city. It could only be a good thing, and it only made her love Bolin more. 

5.  
“So that’s who’s been doing it. I thought so.”  
“Doing what?” Caught in the act, Bo sounds sort of guilty, hand paused over the radio dial. 

“Changing my pre-tuned stations when I’m not around. It was driving me crazy, I thought the ghost of my great aunt was doing it just to play with my sanity.”  
“Oh. Uh. Heh.” Bo laughs sheepishly. “Well, there’s this serial that I’ve been listening to and...”  
This gives Ira some pause. “I’d never have thought you, of all people, would listen to a radio drama.”  
“Well, it’s not so much a single drama somuchasalotofthemIcan’thelpitthey’reonbacktoback.” The words rush out in a tumble that Ira barely catches, Bolin’s face going redder by the second. “I’m sorry, if it was irritating you I can change it, it’s fine -”  
Ira sits next to Bolin, cozy and warm as anything against her side. “No, you can keep listening. I don’t mind.” 

For the next hour and a half they listen to part three of the Tale of Oma and Shu, part six of a highly-embellished drama based off of an ancient Fire Court novel, and the conclusion of a modern comedy-romance, _So I Married a Metalbender._ It’s more enjoyable than Ira thinks possible, and she kinda gets Bo’s radio drama thing a little now, after all.


End file.
